Massive firepower to back ground assault

Israeli forces appear ready to launch significant ground operations in the Tyre area of south Lebanon from which Hizbullah fighters continued to launch rocket salvoes against northern Israel yesterday.

With two more civilians killed by Katyushas hitting Haifa, Israeli military sources signalled that combat units being deployed in the border area were likely to move into action south of the Litani river as air attacks proved incapable of stopping the rockets.

"Tyre and its surroundings will get separate and special treatment," reported the Yediot Aharonot daily. "It will take a very hard pounding." Leaflets have been dropped over 13 villages in the area warning residents to flee.

"Our goal is to win and that means fighting until Hizbullah has no more rockets or the ability to mount any other kind of operations," declared Gen Udi Adam of the army's Northern Command. The Lebanese guerrilla organisation had lost 100 men so far, he said.

Israeli ground operations, codenamed Steel Threads, escalated early on Saturday when a paratroop battalion captured the village of Maroun al-Ras, opposite the Israeli border village of Avivim, but with the loss of five soldiers in heavy fighting with Hizbullah.

The prospect of extended action on a broad front across south Lebanon has brought changes, including the creation of a new theatre command to oversee the battle. But some ministers are reportedly still debating the wisdom of going deeper into Lebanon.

The clear message from Israeli army briefings yesterday was that ground operations will be limited in time and space, but will use overwhelming firepower; and what they describe as limitations on the use of artillery and air power in the Gaza Strip to avoid civilian casualties do not apply in Lebanon, Yediot reported.

In Maroun al-Ras, for example, Israeli soldiers used a Giant Viper rocket system to clear through minefields, destroying everything in its path. Hundreds of Hizbullah fighters took part in the battle but retreated in an orderly fashion and then fought from new positions without breaking ranks.

The Israeli military has developed a healthy respect for the Lebanese guerrillas, who it claims are armed with the best equipment Iran and Syria can supply, including Russian-made Cornet anti-tank missiles capable of penetrating the armour of Israel's Merkava battle tank, advanced rocket-propelled grenades, night-vision devices and other advanced kit.

Hizbullah has created a network of Vietcong-style bunkers, tunnels and trenches, which are destroyed by giant Israeli bulldozers once captured. In a macabre twist, the bodies of 13 Lebanese fighters were taken from Maroun al-Ras and buried in Israel to use in future negotiations over the release of Israeli prisoners.

Assuming Hizbullah's goal is to force Israel into close-range fighting in built-up areas, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) hopes to use its advantages in technology and intelligence, though it has been surprised by the way events have unfolded.

Israeli defence correspondents yesterday suggested that as long as pressure for a ceasefire can be resisted, Israel would like to be able to carry on fighting for perhaps another week. Officials are reportedly cheered by the US decision to speed deliveries of bunker-busting bombs.

"You need to be patient, you cannot undo the work of years in just a few days," said the Israel TV military commentator Roni Daniel. "Hizbullah has had a long time to prepare for this confrontation." In planning ground operations there was a tension between the need to prepare large forces carefully and the urgent requirement to take out Hizbullah rocket launchers.

Israel's strategy has to be understood against the background of the trauma left by the 1982 war, when it invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO and ended up creating a formidable new Shia enemy in the form of Hizbullah, until withdrawing without a peace agreement 18 years later.

More than 600 Israeli soldiers died in a conflict that began with limited objectives but morphed into a grand scheme for regime change in Lebanon, war with Syria, the siege of Beirut and the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians by Israel's Christian allies. There then followed an 18-year-occupation of a border "security zone" that was anything but secure.